By Harold Ambler
A new editorial in Nature is startling for what it reveals, especially the fact Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure about how hard scientists have it when it comes to media access.
Ehrlich is an individual who became an international celebrity by spinning one frightening story after another (about the death of the oceans, for one thing) who maintains, with a straight face, that he and his fellow scientists have an unfair disadvantage in communicating their side of the climate debate.
He is quoted by Nature as saying, regarding the aftermath of Climategate and the fact that skeptic scientists are finally getting a hearing,:
“Everyone is scared shitless, but they don’t know what to do.”
People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.
For, ironically, among the most pervasive myths attending global warming is the one pitching David against Goliath, in which those touting the risks of damaging climate change are cast as David and Big Oil is Goliath.
The story requires observers to ignore the facts: Media, most scientists, and governments the world over have spent and received so much money on their version of events that they have collectively become Goliath. Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk. Funding routinely dries up; tenure is denied them; ad hominem attacks of the most vicious variety are launched against them from the Ivory Tower of academia, from the studios of multi-billion dollar news organizations, and from the bully pulpit of government.
read the rest at Talking About the Weather
They have no plan but to try to stonewall it, and that plan ain’t working.
Credibility is like virginity – once it’s gone, you don’t get it back.
The Comic IPCC AR5 will be beaten to the post as the next climate comic a climate novel called ‘Solar’!
From the UK Telegraph
‘…McEwan is about to publish a new novel, Solar, about global warming. It tells the story of a Nobel-Prize-winning physicist, Michael Beard, who stumbles upon a way of producing energy that promises to solve the world’s energy crisis. It contains McEwan’s customary mixture of a page-turning narrative drive, perceptive characterisation and acute observation. But, more unusually for him, it is also very funny. As he demonstrated with Amsterdam – his satire on the subject of moral responsibility, and the novel that won him the Booker Prize in 1998 – McEwan is no stranger to sardonic humour. But Solar could rightly be described as his first comic novel.
McEwan says he had been thinking of writing about climate change for some years, ‘but it just seemed so huge and so distorted by facts and figures and graphs and science and then virtue. I couldn’t quite see how a novel would work without falling flat with moral intent.’ The key was finally turned in 2005 when he was invited by the environmental group Cape Farewell to join a group of artists and scientists on a trip to Svalbard, a group of Norwegian islands in the Arctic Ocean….’
I think it’s not based on Nobel-prize winner Gore as he cut out the science middle man and figured out how to make cash to solve the world’s energy (peak oil) crisis!! Patchy Moral’s book doesn’t count as it’s theme is more Climactic than climatic!
…and Anthony: some information from the EU referendum. They have been asked to plant a tree due to the scientific finding on the carbon footprint of a blog!
‘…The aim is “to raise awareness of the carbon emissions resulting from the use of the internet – specifically of blogs. A blog with 15,000 visits a month has a yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 8lb.”……’
If the best thet the Anthropogenic Climate Change lobby can come up with for a reboot is the author who, in The Population Bomb said that in the mid-70’s millions would die in worldwide famines and Americans would be dying on average in their 40’s, I think they should definitely be worried.
Sen Boxer: We use the gold standard CRU data.
Reporter: Sen Boxer you know that CRU said they faked their data?
Sen Boxer: Oh we don’t use the faulty CRU data, we only use the NASA data.
NASA: We know our data is faulty — We only use the CRU data.
Sen Boxer: ……
David didn’t have the President of the US, The United Nations, the press, a Nobel Prize, and a $100 million supercomputer on his side.
“Everyone is scared s***less, but they don’t know what to do.”
The irony of this statement is that it has been Ehrlich, Hansen, Schmidt, Jones, Mann, Santer and their ilk who have been scaring the public s***less about global warming for nearly 20 years!!
Climate scientists don’t know what to do?
How about if they performed science, and stopped being data-distorting activists.
Ehrlich has shown over 40+ years in public life that you can’t go far wrong by doing the opposite of everything he says, so it is encouraging to see him pitching in on the side of the AGW doomsters.
People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.
I just went and read again I Samuel 17, and I don’t see how Goliath knew at all what was coming. You don’t give the AGW folks enough credit – they know they’ve messed up, bigtime.
Three things I have learned from the AGW controversy:
1. You can trust science but you can’t trust “scientists”.
2. If a scientist says, “Trust me”; don’t.
3. Trust, but verify.
Another idea for climate “scientists”: they could start by reading this review of Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion,” and then read the book.
http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2010/03/the-case-against-the-hockey-stick/
Steve Goddard (08:43:43) :
David didn’t have the President of the US, The United Nations, the press, a Nobel Prize, and a $100 million supercomputer on his side.
He’s got better. He’s got T R U T H.
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their trust and esteem”. Lincoln
“Everyone is scared shirtless, but they don’t know what to do.”
Yes, that’s probably true. They’ve already have had the best PR money can buy and still continue to enjoy it. Still, regardless of all of the positive press, they’re losing the hearts and minds of people. They’ve tried the “let’s become more shrill” trick. They’ve tried the appeal to authority trick. They’ve perfected the “ad hominem” attack. Still, they see they’re losing the argument. They can’t really “press the reset button” and start all over, they know what they’ll find and won’t be able to explain why information put out originally was knowingly misleading. Mike Mann, for example, can’t suddenly put forth a graph that shows a MWP and less of an incline at the end and say “Eureka!!! I just figured out bristle pine cones don’t make good temp proxies!!!” That would be tantamount to not only admitting the skeptics were right, but also malfeasance and incompetence as a scientist. How many are in the same boat? Every shrill psuedo-scientist advocate that attempted to alarm the world into action. It would probably be more merciful if we simply started the trials today. Then, they could probably garner some sympathy.
@ Steve Goddard (08:43:43)
– Good point Steve!
Perhaps a simple count of articles for and against AGW tabulated over the last 10 years might prove the 10:1 ratio and other trends mentioned in this article….
Michael Mann invokes precisely this analogy in Randy Olson’s softball interview on TheBenshi:
RO – When the story of Climategate broke, the climate skeptics were all over it from Day One with articles linked on The Drudge Report and Fox News. But the science community took days or even weeks to offer up official responses. Don’t you think there’s a problem with quickness of response?
MM – I do. I think that unfortunately this is sort of a classic David vs. Goliath type battle. The science community isn’t organized — it doesn’t have a single politically driven motive, as the climate change deniers do. It’s not organized, it’s not well funded in terms of public outreach in the way that climate change deniers are funded by the fossil fuel industry.
Read it here. I think MM needs to reread the book of Samuel.
What caught my attention in this graph showing the “Roman Warm Period” and the “Medieval Period” is how well those phenomena track with, first, the Qin and Han dynasties in China, and secondly, with the Tang and Sung dynasties—arguably the two greatest periods of social and cultural growth in Chinese history.
David hit Goliath between the eyes. The seat of knowledge, the true meaning of Scientia. What are the first five stones, the pieces of evidence? Here’s my take:
(1) faulty surface stations records
(2) unacknowledged UHI c**p
(3) faulty selection of faulty proxies
(4) faulty CO2 ice core measurements
(5) Goliath gaming the system – Climategate
I still want to see the measurement of CO2 in ice cores challenged. I’m still certain that Jaworowski was all too correct, and that this is why he, like the MWP, got hammered. See my introduction to his work
Why pay for a full page NYT ad when Nature will give you ink for free? Too bad Nature picked the wrong one to quote—it’s like using the Chicago Cubs as a model of success in the World Series.
We really need to demand that to pony up with the science they claim is so settled.
We need the basic papers, not their “settled” conclusions. They have to present real science!
“Where’s the beef?”
I like the way you guys use a biblical metaphor here. Of course, it means absolutely nothing. We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.
Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk.
“intellectual freedom?” Risk? Please — you guys are free to write and publish whatever you want. What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong and cannot get the audience they want, because of the process I describe in the first paragraph.
It’s said that the attempted coup by a handful of ex-soviet military generals in the early 90’s (an attempt to stop the USSR from folding) failed due primarily to their being unable to control access to information. A coup can work if the word doesn’t get out quickly (do the job while everyone is confused.) Knowing this, they shut down local phones, but failed to account for (illegal!) Ham radios. The world saw their machinations, and in realtime. This was a huge factor in their failure, if not *the* factor.
Similarly the Ehrlichs of the world are hobbled by their POV which assumes a central control of the flow of information. The internet and sites like this are the great equalizer. Wm Connolley (sp?) et al practice this approach with wikipedia. Increasingly, people are turning away from this and receiving their news and info from other sources. The media outlets are losing money and can’t seem to figure out that like Ehrlich, they handicap themselves.
The modern David has the internet and WUWT. Stupid, slow, sluggish, brute force Goliath will always lose to a smarter, tech equipped David. Isn’t that the real biblical lesson anyway? Progress and technology are symbiotes.
It’s worse than anyone at AGW thought
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx
Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure about how hard scientists have it when it comes to media access.
The Big G, is beginning to come to grips with what this all means. To his great credit, leading the way is the Chairman of Australia’s independent Public Broadcasting Network, ABC:
“The lack of moral and scientific integrity shown by the IPCC serves only to reduce clarity and increase confusion, disappoint believers and give fuel to doubters. It has frustrated policy makers, and as polling now shows, it has clearly weakened public belief in climate change and devalued respect for science in general.
In defending the indefensible, Mr Gore, university vice-chancellors and those in the media, do a disservice to the scientific method and miss the point that no matter how noble your work, your first responsibility must always be to the truth.” Maurice Newman, Chair ABC Networks
And now even stalwart Guardian George Monbiot re peer review and publishing:
“If scientists want people at least to try to understand their work, they should raise a full-scale revolt against the journals that publish them. It is no longer acceptable for the guardians of knowledge to behave like 19th-century gamekeepers, chasing the proles out of the grand estates.”
David would feel well at home with WUWT.
Here’s a comment I posted over at the site of the article:
————
[earlier poster]: “I wonder if we could tabulate the press article numbers – for and against AGW – over the last 10 years.”
In the US, “The Reader’s Guide to periodical Literature” would give a good estimate, although it covers only 50 publications (I think). There is also an online pay site that scans many newspapers, http://www.newspaperarchive.com . And there is another pay site, whose name I forget, that carries articles from numerous mid-size magazines.
The poor David is being put-PR’d by the oil industry Goliath.
That’s why USA Today put together a piece, featuring none other than Mann as the poor, threatened by nasty e-mails, scientist who is just NOT being heard.
“Climate change efforts are being slowed”.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2010-03-10-warming_N.htm
What a load of crap, the Gore PR machine at work.
so your saying Mann and his hockey stick are like Goliath and his sword, with the MSM as his shield, and Jones, Briffa and their supports his army.
which I suppose would cast Anthony as David, the blogosphere as his sling and the rest of us as… pebbles?
Omigosh, I am a pebble. Not a great big Eschenbach pebble, just a grain of sand pebble. In the end however, David only stunned Goliath with his sling and pebbles. He slew him with his own science. I mean sword.
typo
The poor David is being OUT-PR’d by the oil industry Goliath.
Herman L (09:25:13) :
Have you actually read the emails in Climategate?
If so how can you spout that
“We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.”
and then
“What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong and cannot get the audience they want”
What world have you been living in since November?
We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.
You are saying that with a straight face? So much of it has been debunked so that what you are saying/implying about climate science has to be based on pure faith.
As a practicing (life) scientist who has published several papers in Nature, I continue to be gobsmacked by their defense climate science. It’s disgusting, their lack of adherence to basic principles of scientific inquiry. This editorial is only the latest. The December one was horrendous. Ehrlich would be a joke if he didn’t have the ear of John Holdren and the POTUS.
Now AAAS has its open letter as well: http://www.openletterfromscientists.com/
Goliath is going wobbly…Keep up the good fight!
Herman L (09:25:13) :
I like the way you guys use a biblical metaphor here. Of course, it means absolutely nothing. We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.
Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk.
“intellectual freedom?” Risk? Please — you guys are free to write and publish whatever you want. What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong and cannot get the audience they want, because of the process I describe in the first paragraph.
Those who are just plain wrong don’t get censored here though, it seems. Nor those with their heads in the sand.
Faked their data ?
Distorted their data ?
Sorry, not proven.
Don’t we demand absolute, nitpicked-to-death by 10,000 Web commenters proof these days? Otherwise, it’s just Alarmism.
Like so many of the bogus AGW talking points, the claims of shadowy but well-funded forces marshaled against science are designed to distract the feeble-minded (particularly politicians and journalists) and silence critics.
Pascvaks (09:36:06) :
It’s worse than anyone at AGW thought
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx
—————
That’s probably true.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1842179,00.html
More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion.
… 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel.”
With friends like that, who needs scientists ?
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic, but your last paragraph leads to the belief you are serious.
lichanos (08:59:10) :
People often forget: Goliath, right before the end, sensed that something was amiss.
I just went and read again I Samuel 17, and I don’t see how Goliath knew at all what was coming.
From Samuel:
“David ran quickly to engage him. He put his hand into his bag, took out a stone, slung it, and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell flat on his face on the ground…. Then [David] ran to the Philistine and stood over him, and grasping his sword, he drew it out of the scabbard, dispatched him and cut off his head.”
Climategate was the stone to the forehead. If you said that the AGW crew aren’t flat on their face, I would agree with you, although they are weakened. The parallel may still work because the crucial interval between David’s initial attack and the dispatching of the Big G is arguably right now.
There is something happening in your pants, but you don’t know what to do, do you, Mr. Ehrlich.
=================
Herman L (09:25:13) :
…”intellectual freedom?” Risk? Please — you guys are free to write and publish whatever you want. What you are really referring to here are those few scientists (and many amateurs) whose writings are just plain wrong”
lol, Then, it’s a level playing field. What with the assertions of melting glaciers, rain forest shrinkage, more frequent and severe hurricanes, ect.,….. Apparently, regardless of the scientific basis, any can assert anything, call themselves a scientist and believe for some reason, they are not subject to scrutiny. You know, I, for many years ignored the alarmist fringe of scientific work. Mainly because it didn’t effect me. You people could wail about population booms, AI taking over, cooling, warming, asteroids, blah blah ad naseum….
but now, decision makers are passing laws and regulations in response to this end is near hysteria. These laws and regs run directly counter to my well-being, way of life and quality of life. Further, not just mine, everybody in the entire world has been effected in one way or another because of this literal giant power grab. From increase in power bills to thwarting of development in less fortunate parts of the world, to a direct decrease in world productivity capacity. In my view, intended or not, these so called scientists should have known their assertions would necessarily cause these things to happen. They are responsible and culpable. Prison is too good for these people, Herman.
James Sexton
Herman,
“We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.”
Partly right. However, we can’t say what is “good” science at the time it is published. I do agree though, that with time, as research builds it is the test of time that is the final arbiter. We can see exactly that – now that time has run out, how the AGW alarmists “science” is starting to crumble under the glare of scrutiny.
“You come fully armored in institutional and academic scientific hegemony,
but I say, ‘The lamp of science must burn. Alere flammam!**”’
**Michael Faraday
Herman L:
In climatology, we have an example of a pseudo-scientific process. The causal link between carbon dioxide concentration and average surface temperature is the IPCC-referenced climate models. These models are not falsifiable, thus lying outside science. The IPCC represents them to be scientific. Thus, the proper adjective is “pseudo-scientific.”
That Nature would consider Paul Ehrlich a scientist, much less a source for what scientists face is truely sad.
From the Nature editorial: “Yes, scientists’ reputations have taken a hit thanks to headlines about the leaked climate e-mails at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK. . .”
Ummm, no. It wasn’t the *headlines* that caused the damage to the scientists’ reputations, it was the *content* of those emails.
I think Mann is the author of the editorial. It has that familiar reek of paranoia seen elsewhere, as recently the interview with him published online yesterday at Discover Magazine.com here: http://discovermagazine.com/2010/apr/10-it.s-gettin-hot-in-here-big-battle-over-climate-science/?searchterm=michael%20mann
“Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shirtless, but they don’t know what to do,” he says.”
But why??
Scared of what? Well obviously they can disagree with the skeptics and thus find it wrong that skeptics are winning the public.
But why so scared??
If these “scitentists” has done no fraud, no dishonesty, no bullying of other peoble, what do they have to fear – personnally?
This “scared sxxxless” points to bad behavier, the scare of being revealed.
“”” tarpon (08:43:15) :
Sen Boxer: We use the gold standard CRU data.
Reporter: Sen Boxer you know that CRU said they faked their data?
Sen Boxer: Oh we don’t use the faulty CRU data, we only use the NASA data.
NASA: We know our data is faulty — We only use the CRU data.
Sen Boxer: …… “””
Sir Tarpon, that is Madam Senator Mrs Boxer to use all her titles that she worked so hard to get; so please adress her, as you would your own Mother-in-law.
Thank you.
Lucy Skywalker (09:20:13) :
David hit Goliath between the eyes. The seat of knowledge, the true meaning of Scientia. What are the first five stones, the pieces of evidence? Here’s my take:
(1) faulty surface stations records
(2) unacknowledged UHI c**p
(3) faulty selection of faulty proxies
(4) faulty CO2 ice core measurements
(5) Goliath gaming the system – Climategate
————–
What about McIntyre and McKitrick’s exposure of faulty use of statistics and hockey-stick-generating computer programs? For me the broken hockey stick will always be one of the first rocks. You’ve encompassed this in both “Goliath gaming the system” and ‘faulty proxies” but the statistical tricks need to be mentioned.
SCHOOLS in three US states – Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota – have been told to teach alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527514.100-battle-over-climate-science-spreads-to-us-schoolrooms.html
As I’ve said on other treads…in a few year’s time, either the AGW skeptics will be seen as heroes, or as 21st century flat-earthers. Right or wrong, they’ve provided a valuable service in making climate science far more accountable for its claims…
“…Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota…”
Hotbeds of progressive (little p) thought!
Ref – Anu (10:31:36) :
Pascvaks (09:36:06) :
“It’s worse than anyone at AGW thought”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/126560/Americans-Global-Warming-Concerns-Continue-Drop.aspx
————-————
That’s probably true.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1842179,00.html
More than half of all Americans believe they have been helped by a guardian angel in the course of their lives, according to a new poll by the Baylor University Institute for Studies of Religion.
… 55% answered affirmatively to the statement, “I was protected from harm by a guardian angel.”
With friends like that, who needs scientists ?
____________________________
CORRECTAMUNDO!!
I have a theory you’d probably like – ‘the reason the world is in such a mess is that all the good angels turned in their wings and are down here fooling around’
They beat us with s stick for years and years.
Well guess what?
We’ve taken the stick away from them, and now they are on their knees pleading and crying for us not to beat them back with it.
Screw em! – time to wail away!
Why doesn’t Paul Ehrlich just go ahead and put something in the water and turn us all into zombies.
“”” Herman L (09:25:13) :
I like the way you guys use a biblical metaphor here. Of course, it means absolutely nothing. We are in the 21st century with an open, modern scientific process that accepts only the good science that first gets published and then survives the test of time as other research builds on what has been learned.
Observers must ignore, too, the reality that skeptic scientists maintain their intellectual freedom at significant risk. “””
So just what was it in Johnathon Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels, that in any way related to the realities of the days when that was published.
The imagery in such stories is where the message is.
So in Lilliput the antagonists went to war over whether to open a boiled egg at the big end or the small end (I’m a big ender).
Sort of like the argument over whether high temperatures cause high CO2 levels or whether the cause and effect is the other way round.
As Gulliver pointed out to the Lilliputians; “Hey! it’s the water; stupid!”
Open your eggs anywhere you like; that has little to do with anything.
I do the big end; because then the teaspoon can fit inside the shell easier than at the little end; so like Spock, it’s the logical thing to do.
These fictional imageries serve to get us to think about what the real issues are.
Exactly how CO2 gathers up surface emitted thermal energy (we’re pretty sure it does (most of us)); it really doesn’t have much result on the bottom line, compared to the heavy hitter H2O vapor/H2O liquid/H2O solid; aka clouds.
The reality of the GH effect; as we describe it relative to the atmosphere; regardless of whether real GHs work that way; or irregardless as the case may be; that is not the hill you want to die on.
“Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure about how hard scientists have it when it comes to media access” because he’s had it so so easy.
If only Julian Simon “The Doomslayer” was still around he’d laugh. For he could not understand why the media endlessly listened to Paul Ehrlich and yet ignored him. Ehrlich also lost his famous bet against Julian Simon, a milestone in the fight of empirical science against….
More of the original writings of The (Great) Doomslayer can be found at http://www.juliansimon.org/
Said the wicked witch of the West: “I’m melting!”
Correction: the **quote is attributable to innitials “W.C.” in the preface to a lecture series by Michael Faraday. Thank you. Probably W. Crookes.
Vincent (10:54:08) :
Partly right. However, we can’t say what is “good” science at the time it is published. I do agree though, that with time, as research builds it is the test of time that is the final arbiter. We can see exactly that – now that time has run out, how the AGW alarmists “science” is starting to crumble under the glare of scrutiny.
Just out of curiosity, Vincent, I’d like to know your take on some verifiable numbers here: how many “errors” are we talking about “under the glare of scrutiny” have been identified, and how many pages are there in the IPCC FAR?
Wonder what Ehrlich would do with this fact: “…Science and Nature have both publically taken positions
against publishing anything that opposes the notion of dangerous anthropogenic warming, while
publishing highly dubious science endorsing the notion.”–Dr. Richard Lindzen, MIT
http://www.heartland.org/events/newyork09/pdfs/lindzen.pdf
Whoops, sorry, I forgot that Ehrlich does not deal in facts!
Re: Herman L (Mar 11 09:25),
Herman L, you are being willfully obtuse.
You damned well know that not enough time has elapsed since the alleged “good science” has been published to determine if “survives the test of time” and yet same science is used to scare the public “s***less” and demand economically devastating measures. Your vaunted “open, modern (dare I say post-modern) science process has skipped the survival of time test by prematurely shouting “fire” in the crowded public theatre.
As for us (“you guys”) being able to freely express what we want, most of us in the skeptical blogs that use our real names are happily in the position of being retired or financially independent and not vulnerable to the negative consequences of being labeled “deniers”. There are lots of examples of scientists who waited for retirement before “outing” themselves as skeptics. But with the climategate revelations, skeptics no longer the pariahs that they formerly were. Witness the overtures from Judith Curry.
In future we are going to have to refer to “the FORMERLY prestigious scientific journal Nature.”
Any publication which actually quotes Paul Ehrlich has just waived any claim to “prestigious.”
Or “scientific,” for that matter.
Canada’s Green Party is working on damage control. Here is a puff piece from Elizabeth May, head of the Greens in Canada:
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/03/11/elizabeth-e-may-don-t-demonize-the-messenger.aspx
Frank Lansner (11:21:40) :
“Ecologist Paul Ehrlich at Stanford University in California says that his climate colleagues are at a loss about how to counter the attacks. “Everyone is scared shirtless, but they don’t know what to do,”
reply theres a saying (only the criminals are scared of the police) .
Paul Ehrlich…. So he really exist?
My brain sort of imagined him as a historical figure like….[snipped by myself]
That Nature listen to him sounds like taken from a novel.
“Fear” by Michael Crichton comes to mind. This is how sick the western world has become.
Mark N (11:52:59), thanks for bringing up Julian Simon. It was a very happy day for me when I discovered his writings a few years ago. For me his Ultimate Resource II has been a sturdy umbrella against the steadily increasing rain of gloom & doom BS.
The more I think about it, the more often Paul Erlich is in the media, the better it would be for Science.
Hopefully together with Al Gore and Pachauri. Again and again.
I wouldnt mind the Norwegian Foreign minister joining.
They are turning children into zombies with public school indoctrination.
Schools used to teach about the industrial revolution in a positive fashion, before intellectuals started fantasizing about the joys of living in squalor.
Amazing. They really, really, do not seem to have a clue what has happened or why.
And Ehrlich’s whiny “Everyone is scared shitless, but they don’t know what to do” is priceless. It seems to me though, that the not knowing what to do is a function of being “scared shitless”, so his use of the word “but” is illogical.
I actually like Frank’s “scared shirtless” phrase. It has more class. Good thing they aren’t scared pantsless.
Richard Heg (11:33:14) :
SCHOOLS in three US states – Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota – have been told to teach alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming.
It’s so very sad to see the instruction/indoctrination/terrorizing of little children by this crap. I worry that it fundamentally alters their view of the future to be much less optimistic. That’s a profound problem.
Frank Lansner (11:21:40) :
Ehrlich: “Everyone is scared shirtless, but they don’t know what to do,” he says.”
Lansner: “But why??
Scared of what?” (paraphrase: Having their bad conduct exposed.)
I agree with you, but can I add something else?
Now that the so-called “science” of AGW is being closely scrutinized and those examinations are revealing dodgy “science”, and is getting public exposure and recognition, AGW scientists (read advocates and polemicists) are fearful all their “science” will be successfully refuted.
And, in AGW’s place will be a body of science they CAN NOT successfully refute:
Thus, they will have no answer.
So, beyond the concerns about having unethical conduct exposed, there is the fear that in the end AGW advocates will have no answer.
They will be forced into silence.
And, implicitly, silence is a tacit admission.
Result: Man-made global warming is the biggest HOAX in history.
And, their names will be forever attached to that hoax.
Your legacy is perpetrating a hoax — that’s the biggest fear in Science.
Trust me.
Anu (10:31:36) :
A good question. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, so the point you are trying to make is really irrelevant, and somewhat distasteful. Who was it that said God doesn’t play dice? And what is it called when you disparage an entire class of people based on a belief system?
Anu (10:26:08) :
Not proven. I agree. Do you mind explaining the rationale behind creating the global temperature anomaly, pointing out the places the process could go wrong, and what controls are used to ensure the integrity of the process? How are these controls tested?
To all AGW alarmists and other miscellaneous perveyors of doom: DO NOT DESPAIR! There are still plenty of opportunities ahead! Even if civilization survives 2012, there will be plenty of time to create panic for the approaching ice age!
(I sincerely hope you still have that kerosene heater left over from Y2K!)
treehugger reports that Romm suggests that the right course of action would be for Big O to tour the US with his biggest guns – Holdren, Lubchenko and Chu:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/should-obama-science-team-national-campaign-climate-science.php
Like “Rolling Thunder” or something… “Rolling Warming” sounds nice…
Who actually are these skeptics so well funded by the fossil fuel industry?
Which companies wrote the checks? how much and when?
Where are examples of the media buys and expensive PR campaigns financed by this river of money?
Just wondering….
The journal Nature should be scared, too. This once prestigious publication allowed itself to be commandeered by leftist political science. In fact, when the smoke clears there will be not a few icons tarnished, perhaps beyond redemption. I was bowled over when after climategate Dr. Phil Jones was musing about revisions to one (or two?) of his old Nature papers. If you rob a bank, even giving the money back after you have been caught doesn’t bring redemption. Heck, they take the money back and chuck you in the slammer. I’m sure Nature will eventually wish to remove it and some others from the journal where it otherwise festers and serves as a reminder of the degraded quality of the journal itself.
“Everyone is scared shirtless, but they don’t know what to do.”
I submit we’ve seen a parallel to all this before so let me expound.
Remember the problem with asbestos? What took it out of production and use? Was it science? No. Was it activist rallies? No. Was it a mass mailing campaign? No. (Certainly that was before the Internet was a big factor, so nix that).
Asbestos was blindsided by something rather obtuse—market analysts rated companies with asbestos mines so low that their share prices tanked and those companies couldn’t get rid of their asbestos holdings fast enough. (For most, the “bottom line” contribution from asbestos was negligible anyway; shutting them down was the preferred solution.)
Like asbestos, AGW will collapse but not because of better science; it won’t come directly from blog pressure; and Gore’s naked caricature appearing on the cover of some news magazine won’t cause the collapse, either.
These will help, but like asbestos, AGW will collapse because of risk estimation:
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=526842
George E Smith
“Exactly how CO2 gathers up surface emitted thermal energy (we’re pretty sure it does (most of us)); it really doesn’t have much result on the bottom line, compared to the heavy hitter H2O vapor/H2O liquid/H2O solid; aka clouds.”
Anthropogenic Global Warming depends and rests entirely on one single premise.
That “greenhouse gases” alone (at no more than 1% of all the atmospheric gases) are responsible for all atmospheric temperature.
The assumption requires that oxygen and nitrogen (at 99% of all atmospheric gases) absorb no heat whatsoever.
It also requires that CO2 (0.0385% of atmospheric gases) is the primary driver of temperature in the atmosphere and that at a certain temperature, a positive feedback loop involving water vapour becomes activated by CO2 warming.
So to settle AGW debate should be and oddly is, a very simple and straight forward thing to do.
If it is possible to show that this premise is false then AGW is debunked.
Firstly we must ask, is it possible for the latent/absorbed heat of one substance at 0.0385% of the entire atmosphere, or even several substances at no more than 1%, to be responsible for the assumed, estimated atmospheric temperature of 33º C ?
Secondly, is it really at all possible that oxygen and nitrogen are, as originally claimed by John Tyndall and now maintained by the so called climatologists and AGW proponents, “transparent to radiant heat” ?
Thirdly is it possible to answer point one and two with simple reproducible experiments ?
The answers are NO, NO, and YES respectively.
We can resolve the first question with a simple thought experiment as follows:
Is it possible to heat one liter of fluid by 33º C, be it gas or liquid, with one centiliter (1% of 1 liter) with boiling water or steam ?
Answer, a resounding NO.
The second question can be answered just as easily:
How does ordinary air (20% oxygen and 79% nitrogen) compare to pure CO2 with regards to heat absorption ?
The answer can be found here: “AGW Debunked for £3.50”,
and is further verified here: “The Heat Capacity of gases”,
The only conclusion you can draw from this, is that not only is AGW a fraud but clearly so too is the so called greenhouse effect.
@ John R Judge: “Three things I have learned from the AGW controversy:
1. You can trust science but you can’t trust “scientists”.
2. If a scientist says, “Trust me”; don’t.
3. Trust, but verify.”
Not quite. (Real) science does not rely on, and never has relied on, “trust.” It relies on verifiable data and verifiable facts. If anything, one might say that good science relies on a healthy DIStrust. Or “scepticism,” if you will.
I think this article would be more convincing if it didn’t refer to ancient myths.
“Paul Ehrlich is a go-to figure.”
Why? What has Ehrlich ever gotten right? I’d love to know. So, I think do a lot of other mere mortals.
I imagine that the next IPCC reports will be about 42% fewer pages. And it’ll be vetted thoroughly by sceptics. The “street fight” has just begun.
Interesting that Nature attempts to co-opt Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” title. They stumble badly. For example in their closing paragraph, Nature states:
“Scientists… can and must continue to inform policy-makers about the underlying science and the potential consequences of policy decisions — while making sure they are not bested in the court of public opinion.”
Herein lies yet another train wreck for the IPCC and “science” orthodoxy. They still think they’re in politics. “Potential consequences of policy decisions…” speaks to a deep psychological need to control. A need to control the “science,” the decision makers, the perception of decision makers and the general public. This is the outdated, dysfunctional thinking of failed propagandists.
What is demonstrated by the plunging AGW polls is this deep need has been taken away. Alarmists (the few there really are) are indeed scared “sh*tless” because they have failed badly and are now about to be put on trial for those failures. Have we yet one “scientist” outside the hockey team who steps forward with empirical proof of CAGW?? No. We have only faceless, bodiless statements from institutions. These institutions will collapse with the AGW agenda unless some brave souls come forward and challenge the orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, the hits just keep on coming; and will continue until the tarnished zealots of climate cry UNCLE.
I can see one good reason for Paul Ehrlich espousing AGW.
All the mitigation strategies will tend to bring about his previous predictions of millions dying, life expectancy of 40 years etc. He can just say he got the timing wrong.
DaveE.
The Nature editorial says:
“Climate scientists are on the defensive, knocked off balance by a re-energized community of global-warming deniers who, by dominating the media agenda, are sowing doubts about the fundamental science. Most researchers find themselves completely out of their league in this kind of battle because it’s only superficially about the science. The real goal is to stoke the angry fires of talk radio, cable news, the blogosphere and the like, all of which feed off of contrarian story lines and seldom make the time to assess facts and weigh evidence. Civility, honesty, fact and perspective are irrelevant.”
—
As a scientist who has worked in this field for over 25 years, I am offended! MY real goal is to glean the scientific facts….if, in fact, the accumulation of manmade compounds in the atmosphere is proven to be deleterious, I can accept that fact and work with others towards a solution. The Montreal Protocol and controls over CFCs was a tremendous example.
However, I am NOT willing to eat any B.S. that these folks care to shovel at me! And, I don’t care to be characterized as a “global-warming denier” either, I’m a research firmly grounded in traditional scientific method.
This stinks.
Is Paul Ehrlich still alive?
I thought he got eaten during the great worldwide starvation in 1984.
There seems to be a stage in the collapse of the authority of a ruling hegenomy where there is this crisis-of-confidence panic, and the oppressor starts to identify with the oppressed. Goliath feels vulnerable for the first time and so thinks he’s David.
And then he starts saying things like: the poorly informed public debate often leaves one wondering whether science has any role at all.
Yeah, David that’s right.
And Goliath-who-thinks-he’s-David keeps informing the public debate with his weird mantra like: For example, the IPCC error was originally caught by scientists, not sceptics.
And it’s not just that ‘scientists’ and ‘sceptics’ are mutually exclusive categories here, but that all the evidence suggests that the lie of melt-by-2035 was known to everyone involved, including the (anti-sceptic) scientist authors and the (sceptical) scientist reviewers, before publication. So again, yeah, David that’s right.
I have to keep reminding myself that I am reading yet another editorial in Nature — that this is not just about one phoney branch of science science going down — the rot is in the trunk, root and branch, at the core. This Goliath, now clutching his eye and wailing, is not some timely passing hero like the Hockey Team or the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, no, this is the whole Science Establishment.
Paul Ehrlich was awarded the Heineken prize in 1998:
“…Paul Ehrlich is an outstanding ecologist and visionary scientist….”
Read the laudatio at:
http://www.knaw.nl/cfdata/heineken/laureates_detail.cfm?winnaar__id=47
Makes you think the judges were drunk…
One would think that Paul Ehrlich said everything that could be said but this would not be true. He will massage the words, invert the phrases, hide the facts, and generate an incline of outrageous proportions (a hockey stick) out of thin air. The man is a genius. No wonder he’s enjoyng such popularity and reward. It would not be unreasonable to imagine that one day, perhaps sooner than we’d care to think, this great scientific mind will be nominated to replace that Einstein of our modern world, the one, the only, Rajendra Pachauri.
Of course ‘Nature’ will no longer be the same or at least we can hope not. What is life and ‘Nature’ without hope?
“Everyone is scared s***less, but they don’t know what to do.”
Scared? I can understand them being disappointed and even angry that their work is being countered but scared? That sounds more like an emotion that you would experience if you were doing something wrong and it looks like you were found out. Adulterers say they’re sorry for the affair, but most likely it’s just sorry they were caught. I doubt these people are scared for humanity, more likely scared for their own future.
Christoph @ 13:45:51
The trouble with people like you is you don’t recognize a story with a moral point to it.
===============
lichanos (08:59:10) :
I just went and read again I Samuel 17, and I don’t see how Goliath knew at all what was coming.
He had a premonition…
“Meanwhile, the Philistine, with his shield bearer in front of him, kept coming closer to David. He looked David over and saw that he was only a boy, ruddy and handsome, and he despised him. He said to David, ‘Am I a dog, that you come at me with hockey sticks?‘ ”
*koff*
New translation…
“”” Politicians cost lives (13:44:31) :
George E Smith
“Exactly how CO2 gathers up surface emitted thermal energy (we’re pretty sure it does (most of us)); it really doesn’t have much result on the bottom line, compared to the heavy hitter H2O vapor/H2O liquid/H2O solid; aka clouds.”
Anthropogenic Global Warming depends and rests entirely on one single premise.
That “greenhouse gases” alone (at no more than 1% of all the atmospheric gases) are responsible for all atmospheric temperature.
The assumption requires that oxygen and nitrogen (at 99% of all atmospheric gases) absorb no heat whatsoever.
It also requires that CO2 (0.0385% of atmospheric gases) is the primary driver of temperature in the atmosphere and that at a certain temperature, a positive feedback loop involving water vapour becomes activated by CO2 warming.
So to settle AGW debate should be and oddly is, a very simple and straight forward thing to do.
If it is possible to show that this premise is false then AGW is debunked.
Firstly we must ask, is it possible for the latent/absorbed heat of one substance at 0.0385% of the entire atmosphere, or even several substances at no more than 1%, to be responsible for the assumed, estimated atmospheric temperature of 33º C ?
Secondly, is it really at all possible that oxygen and nitrogen are, as originally claimed by John Tyndall and now maintained by the so called climatologists and AGW proponents, “transparent to radiant heat” ? “””
Well Pcl, let’s take a look at some of your concerns.
Right now, Anthony’s little climate gizmo, up on the left, says that CO2 is currently 388.33 ppm of the atmosphere (by volume) which means it is one CO2 molecule per 2575 total atmospheric molecules; but close enough to your 0.0385%. So you ask how such a small percentage of the atmosphere can be responsible for the “”” assumed, estimated atmospheric temperature of 33º C ? “”” not sure who is doing the assuming or the estimating; but most sources seem to put the number (mean) more like 15 deg C; and proxy data for the last 600 million years says that temperature has never ever been higher than 22 deg C; well only over that 600 million years.
So you seem to be saying that one CO2 molecule out of 2575 molecules couldn’t possibly be doing anything; well anything as drastic as “Greenhouse Effect” warming.
So what would you say if the “impurity” level was much less than 1 in 2575; like what if it was only one in 442,000 molecules; could an impurity level that low really do anything. Do you think your house tap water is that clean.
If you think an impurity level of 1 in 442,000 molecules couldn’t possibly do anything; then you should turn off your computer imediately; and immediately discard it in the trash; because it couldn’t possibly be working.
Your computer is chock full of materials made from ordinary sand; from which they extract a material that has 4.42 x 10^22 molecules per cubic cm in the material. It is rather high purity material; say one impurity atom/molecule out of 10 million, so it is 99.99999% pure. That should be clean enough for anybody.
But then they go and cruddy it up by deliberately stirring into it some foreign material impurities; typically about 10^17 molecules per cm^3, which comes out to one impurity moelcule in 442,000; so still very much cleaner, than either your tap water of the CO2 laden atmosphere.
Except if it wasn’t for those impurities they put in your computer; your computer would not work.
Neither will your cell phone, your Sony Walkman; your TV set; not even your car would work these days.
But you are so sure that one impurity atom in 2575 in the atmospehre couldn’t possibly do anything to heat the atmosphere.
You ask whether oxygen and nitrogen are transparent to “radiant heat”
Well now you have me bamboozled because I have no idea what that is. I do know that oxygen and particularly nitrogen are pretty transparent to “radiant energy”; but not to whatever that “heat” part is.
In fact, that once CO2 molecule that you sneer at happens to collect some of that radiant energy, and then uses it to “heat” the oxygen and nitrogen; which themselves rapidly pass it on all around the atmosphere.
So the radiant energy may just steam right on through the oxygen and nitrogen unscathed; but because of that miserably low one CO2 molecule out of 2575, those main gases can actually be heated quite well by some of that “radiant energy”, that is captured by the CO2.
So reject that if you like; but then why don’t you donate your non-workable computer to Goodwill so somebody else can try to get it working with its one impurity atom per 442,000. Well actually, it could be as high as one in 44,200; or even as low as one in 4.42 million; just depends on where you look in your non-functioning computer.
@ CRS, Dr.P.H.
Thank you for being one of the (many) good guys. I have never doubted that most scientists out there still adhere to those age-old scientific principles, and that your good name is being tarnished by a relatively small few at the top who have the power and the influence (or are happy to have their strings pulled by such people). The Manns and the Joneses of this world, the ones who have sold out their scientific principles for (twisted) political ones – and for their pieces of silver – have lowered the respect of the Climate Scientist to that of the Politician.
But the truth always comes out eventually. All you need to do is stick to your principles (and I know you will), and when – in God knows how many years – this sorry era in scientific history has passed, you shall hold your head high.
Dave F (13:19:53) :
Anu (10:31:36) :
A good question. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive, so the point you are trying to make is really irrelevant, and somewhat distasteful.
————–
Do you have any proof that a belief in guardian angels does not correlate negatively with an understanding of science ? Strong correlation is much more important than “mutually exclusive”.
Science often provokes “distaste”:
http://www.myclassiclyrics.com/artist_biographies/Charles_Darwin_ape.jpg
And what is it called when you disparage an entire class of people based on a belief system?
Airport security ?
G.L. Alston (09:31:54) :
You say;
“Stupid, slow, sluggish, brute force Goliath will always lose to a smarter, tech equipped David. Isn’t that the real biblical lesson anyway? Progress and technology are symbiotes.”
I beg to differ. And I think the story of David and Goliath is very pertinent to consideration of the Editorial in Nature by Paul Ehrlich. Indeed, that Editorial and the reasons for it are directly analagous to the story of David and Goliath and the reasons for it.
Paul Ehrlich is not the first political spin-doctor, and he won’t be the last.
The story of David and Goliath is a fabrication or – to be precise – the Bible says it’s a fabrication. The Bible says there was a family of giant Philistine warriors from Gath and one, called Goliath, was so big “his spear was the size of a weaver’s beam”. But the boy David did not kill him. The Bible says (in 2 Samuel 21: 19) a man from Bethlehem by the name of Elhanan son of Jair Killed Goliath.
This poses the question as to the origin of the story of David and Goliath. The answer to that question cannot know for certain, but the obvious explanation is probably the right one, and it is as follows.
David ruled Israel as its king throughout his adult life. He was an exceptional war-lord who established the power and secured the territories of Israel. And through his son, Solomon, he established a dynasty that lasted for centuries. But, other than that, he was a poor king. David was a tyrant whose decisions were arbitrary and self-centered. An adulterer, he married Solomon’s mother having arranged the death of her first husband so he could. But with old age came weakness.
The elderly King David was rich with the plunder of many wars, and he was powerful because the king’s vengeance was feared. But in 1 Kings 1: 1 we are told that his strength and health failed with age. Belief in David’s invincibility needed to be nurtured if pretenders to the throne were to be dissuaded from trying to overthrow the old man.
What better warning about taking on a weakened old David than a story about how when weak, as a boy, David had defeated a giant that no other warrior dare face?
Compare that to the reason for the Nature Editorial.
The self-titled ‘Team’ has ruled climate “science” throughout their adult lives. They were funded and organised so they could and did obtain a power over the science publishing media that secured research funding towards their domain. They still hope their followers will control climate “science” in the future. But other than that they have been poor scientists. Their scientific methods have been arbitrary and self-centred. And their moral turpitude is demonstrated by their actions to destroy and defame others and to distort the peer review process so they could get what they wanted. But with Climategate has come weakness.
Their science has been lavishly funded by provision of large grants, and they have been powerful because their control of the peer review process was feared by other scientists. But their power has been severely reduced by Climategate, Mountaingate, Africagate, etc. Belief in the Team’s David’s invincibility needs to be nurtured if real scientists are to be dissuaded from trying to overthrow the weakened Team.
What better warning about taking on a weakened Team than a story about how the Team when weak, in the past, had defeated the giant force of Big Oil?
So, the lesson to be learned from the myth of David and Goliath is to recognise the true strengths and weaknesses of opponents, and to avoid being fooled by their spin. It is important to remember those lessons when considering the Editorial in Nature by Paul Ehrlich.
Richard
“Everyone is scared s***less,”:
Probably sums up the feeling of 1/3 of the U.S. Senate,
and all of the U.S. House of Representatives, that are up for election this November.
I wonder where they stand on catastrophic AGW ?
Reference the article in the’New Scientist’ which was quoted. I think that the opening lines indicate the inclination of the author:-
“Louisiana, Texas and South Dakota – have been told to teach alternatives to the scientific consensus on global warming. The moves appear to be allied to efforts to teach creationism in public schools.”
So, we anti-AGWers are now equated with the Creationist loonies!
This, imo, has got to be the most obnoxious thing about Big Doom “science”.
They’re always the “tiny voice of enlightened reason” to everyone elses apathetic, yet subconsciously ruffled attitudes. They think this true even though they have access to billions and billions of dollars, always have their views publicized, and seemingly can get any corporation to surrendur with but a single phone call. They think this true even though there’s many people in the world struggling in poverty, coming from cultures that have done so since anyone can remember, and many people in the developed world going broke even as their retirement date comes ever closer.
It’s the pinnacle of intellectual dishonesty that they keep playing this victim card, and at times I just wanna smack ’em one for it.
I can understand why they are scared. If AGW continues to crumble there will be about 20% of the jobs in climate science available in the future. 4 out of every 5 will be looking for a new job.
I have some Spotted Owls I’m letting go at rock bottom prices. They make wonderful pets.
Harold Ambler,
I really enjoyed your post.
The simple image of David & Goliath is a useful vehicle for expressing the moral/emotional state of the intellectual contests on the scientific study of our atmosphere.
For future posts consider also a powerful useful image of a more secular nature, for example the father in Terrance Rattigan’s play ‘The Winslow Boy’. It is a fine piece on integrity.
Also, of a more secular nature consider the individual unsupported hero in the movie “High Noon”. I loved Gary Cooper in that.
You might want to do another post that alludes to a more secular image than David and Goliath.
I would stay away from the image of Galileo vs the Roman Catholic Church, too much baggage in that one.
Again thanks for you post and thank you Anthony for having it here on WUWT.
John
Herman L (09:25:13) :
“…“intellectual freedom?” Risk? Please — you guys are free to write and publish whatever you want.”
Today we are more civilized, we no longer torture and kill those who do not pay lip service to the “politically correct” point of view (it is called being a team player) now you are only fired and blackballed. I am stating this after being fired from three different jobs for refusing to falsify laboratory results. I am a chemist.
There’s no moral point to the story, Kim. Even as a then-believing Roman Catholic child I knew this was B.S.
David was better armed.
He had a missile weapon, which he was exceedingly well practiced in as were many slingers of his era, and later: The “Spanish” Balearic Island slingers were famous and deadly auxiliary additions to Roman legions. The Biblical account shows David was at least as accomplished a slinger as these, pre his engagement with Goliath.
It’s a retarded story for that reason.
Similar, better, and likely related stories are found in — for example — Homer’s Illiad (the “Phillistines’ described armour too is suspiciously close to the Greeks’).
Which at least had the “moral” virtue of placing roughly equally armed combatants, experienced and inexperienced, against each other.
Re: Ken Stewart (09:20:04) :
What caught my attention in this graph showing the “Roman Warm Period” and the “Medieval Period” is how well those phenomena track with, first, the Qin and Han dynasties in China, and secondly, with the Tang and Sung dynasties—arguably the two greatest periods of social and cultural growth in Chinese history
Not only that, but the Little Ice Age tracks amazingly well with the decline of the Ming dynasty — unquestionably the most miserable dynasty in Chinese history. History records how the Mings had ever increasing taxes, even as agricultural production declined and famine became more widespread. At the end, the taxes were so exhorbitant that farmers were no longer able to pay the taxes and feed themselves, and so abandoned the farms to join the bandits. At the end, it was the bandits, not the Manchus, who first overthrew the Ming dynasty.
Nature’s commentary quickly reveals what side its on:
Use of the term “deniers” to characterize opponents of AGW stopped me right in my tracks.
I thought Nature was a prestigious scientific journal, a type of even-handed referee, if you will, but clearly such is not the case.
You see, it’s one thing to have scientists caught up in their own work — it’s another thing to have a supposed impartial referee reveal their bias & prejudice in such a transparent manner.
Kinda makes you wonder about the rest of the operation’s ability to be fair and impartial.
Weaver Bird Sings. Skiers exult.
…-
“Warm winters here to stay
By BILL KAUFMANN, Calgary Sun”
“University of Victoria climatologist Dr. Andrew Weaver said even without El Nino, the general warming trend is clear, with records likely to be set only in one direction.
“We expect as we move forward, the likelihood of breaking this record increases, while the likelihood of breaking cold records decreases,” said Weaver, an author of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
He said the melting effect of the mild wwinter(sic) on Arctic ice — already being rapidly depleted by man-made global warming — will in turn impact our weather.”
http://www.calgarysun.com/news/alberta/2010/03/11/13199301.html
…-
“Late blast of winter lashes Metro Vancouver
METRO VANCOUVER — A late blast of winter hit Metro Vancouver Thursday blanketing parts of the region in snow and bolstering the snow pack on local ski hills just in time for the 2010 Paralympics.
Residents living at higher elevations such as Coquitlam and Burnaby awoke to several centimetres of snow on the ground and shuttle buses replaced the articulated bus service at Simon Fraser University because of snow covered roads on Burnaby mountain.
Meanwhile, the region was also battered by strong winds as Environment Canada issued a wind warning for areas around the Strait of Georgia and the North Coast Thursday. Winds of 70 km/h were recorded on the South Coast while up towards North Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii winds reached 100 km/h. ”
” … residents of the West Coast were ready to brag about an early spring with cherry blossoms in full bloom.
However, since Sunday temperatures in Vancouver have dropped below seasonal norms. The city dropped to -1 Celsius on Tuesday for the first time in two months.”
http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Late+blast+winter+lashes+Metro+Vancouver/2670900/story.html
That editorial in Nature is pathetic. When did those clowns ever give a minute’s thought to the economic consequences of their “policies”? It’s very dangerous to have debates on public policy hijacked by people who don’t know jack about private industry and how businesses operate. They’ve been tax-supported parasites for so long they don’t even understand that if they consume their host organism they will die.
The only reason ANY scientist should be afraid is if they too have mistakes they would like kept hidden.
If the science they are researching is 100% rock solid then there is no reason to have any fear as the results and data would speak for themselves.
Question?
What happens when a scientist (peer reviewed) finds their research is not the results they expected and are incorrect?
Has any scientist retracted their claim? Without being pressured?
I have my own science that is 100% rock solid as I input and ripped it apart in every dirction to make sure their is absolutely no avenue that anyone can say “hey, I found something wrong here.”
If they do, I have every answer to show how this is correct.
Richard S Courtney (15:35:06) :
The story of David and Goliath is a fabrication or – to be precise – the Bible says it’s a fabrication. The Bible says there was a family of giant Philistine warriors from Gath and one, called Goliath, was so big “his spear was the size of a weaver’s beam”.
——————————-
Prior to the introduction into the west of the Chinese horizontal loom in the 12th century, the weaving tools of Europeans and people of the Middle East were light-weight affairs. See for example the following images of the vertical looms of ancient Greece and Egypt.
http://www.laurelcorona.com/images/women-weaving.jpg
http://img.mywire.com/Pubs/display/2009/03/19/8787194.jpg
The spear that was as big as a weaver’s beam would be heavier and a little longer than normal, but hardly the building-beam-sized affair that you probably have in mind. It follows, then, that it is possible that figures such as Goliath were indeed historical – the word ‘giant’ was applied to unusually tall and sometimes also heavily built men, and it is very likely that a genetic aberration ran in families, creating clans which experienced giantism.
Richard S Courtney (15:35:06) :
Interesting conspiracy theory. However, it has little support, much like Ehrlich’s many assertions…
—————
2 Samuel 21:19 (New International Version)
19 In another battle with the Philistines at Gob, Elhanan son of Jaare-Oregim [a] the Bethlehemite killed Goliath [b] the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.
Footnotes:
1. 2 Samuel 21:19 Or son of Jair the weaver
2. 2 Samuel 21:19 Hebrew and Septuagint; 1 Chron. 20:5 son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath
——————
1 Chronicles 20:5 (New International Version)
5 In another battle with the Philistines, Elhanan son of Jair killed Lahmi the brother of Goliath the Gittite, who had a spear with a shaft like a weaver’s rod.
As a French translation (La Bible du Semeur) points out, it may have been a copyists error on which your theory is based…
MIT’s Richard Lindzen and U. of Vancouver’s Hadi Dowlatabadi had a great full-length (52 minute) discussion this week on the Canadian TVO Channel program _The Agenda with Steve Paiken_. Both scientists downplayed the fearmongering that Ehrlich is so anxious to play up. It’s a solid, sophisticated discussion–not quite a debate, but lively nonethless. It’s all here on Youtube, in high resolution. Enjoy.
I’d be scared s***less too if I realise there was a probability that I was going to end up in jail
And Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa’s tourism minister. And Milipede.
They’d better not invite Gore along, lest they get trapped in the Donner Pass.
(Burp!)
This quote from the Nature editorial:
“The core science supporting anthropogenic global warming has not changed. This needs to be stated again and again, in as many contexts as possible.”
Uh huh…..and the more you state it, “again and again”, in whatever context you choose, the more hollow it rings.
Keep saying that, unsupported, and unsubstantiated by empirical proof, and you will seal the fate of CAGW faster than the CO2 ppm can rise to 390!
OT….check out what just happened in palm-tree-graced Barcelona and surrounding areas….
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1256974/Shock-British-holidaymakers-Majorca-island-hit-freak-snowstorm.html
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
vigilantfish (18:33:45) :
Richard S Courtney (15:35:06) :
The story of David and Goliath is a fabrication or – to be precise – the Bible says it’s a fabrication. The Bible says there was a family of giant Philistine warriors from Gath and one, called Goliath, was so big “his spear was the size of a weaver’s beam”.
>>
Yes, well, it depends how old a copy you have and what language it is in. Goliath grows over time from 4 cubits and a span to 6, and his spear transforms from a rod to a beam. 4 cubits would have been a giant to an average person back then who was less than 5 feet, now they would just be tall.
Prior to the broadway play “Joseph and his Technicolor Dream Coat” there was the biblical “Joseph and his Coat of Many Colors” which in the oldest manuscripts was “Joseph and his Coat with Short Sleeves”. Dying of cloth hadnt been invented yet, but short sleeves was special because before that coats had either no sleeves or long sleeves.
Jesus was raised by a “carpenter” though carpentry was not invented then. The oldest manuscripts refer to him as a “builder of houses” which at that time would be a stone mason.
These aren’t fabrications. These are stories that have evolved so that they make sense to the current audience.
And where is their army of lobbyists? According to Gore, there are five times as many anti-cap lobbyists as congressmen.
Misleading advice in Nature Editorial:
” … be it media training for scientists …” (LOL)
No gentlemen, normal scientists don’t need it.
But some had already too much of it. They better get a training in “back to the roots”, means real science, not post-normal.
There is no science in AGW. They are only scared of losing their income. The fraud issue is difficult as I don’t believe in putting people in jail for being lazy and stupid and just taking the money freely offered to them. There are times that may be the best thing to do considering your personal circumstances and then suddenly the lights come on and you remember there was this decision you made 15 years ago to ignore or skip over certain disturbing bits of information … putting the investment built on the foundation of drilling mud in jeopardy. If you have half a brain, you say ‘oh well’ and move on like some of the high profile modellers of late if you look at their latest work. Paul Erhlich? Never heard of him.
The actual article in ‘Nature’ is a bad joke. No wonder I don’t read that rag.
Davidmhopper:
“Jesus was raised by a “carpenter” though carpentry was not invented then.”
Excuse me? That would certainly come as a surprise to the makers of the many, many wooden artifacts we have from Ancient Egypt, millennia BC. Come to think of it, how did the Romans make, errr, crosses without basic carpentry skills? Not to mention their massive wooden siege engines, the original Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, much of the palace comlex of Knossos, Solomon’s Temple and its cedar from Lebanon, heck, the carefully detailed construction of the Ark of the Covenant, the huge fleets of warships of the ancient world….
Carpentry hadn’t been invented by the reign of Augustus? Are you frickin’ kidding?
Christian science monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Global-Warming/2010/0311/Independent-review-of-IPCC-and-its-global-warming-reports-an-answer-to-critics
The constant tugging over climate science and the behaviors revealed in the hacked e-mails are traceable to politicians demanding of science something it was never designed to deliver, according to Daniel Sarewitz, co-director of Arizona State University’s Consortium for Science, Policy, and Outcomes.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2010/0311/Scientists-urge-Senate-action-on-global-warming
Two thousand US economists and climate scientists, including eight Nobel laureates, are sending a letter Thursday to the Senate urging lawmakers to require immediate nationwide cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions tied to global warming.
We’ve heard that somewhere before, haven’t we? No, of course it’s not a coordinated defence….
Two issues here. firstly, the ‘scientists’ hid the error for months, and secondly, what is it about sceptics that makes them mutually exclusive to scientists? Are we being prejudiced, perhaps?
They definitely do!
That still remains to be seen, and is a swiftly vanishing argument IMO.
Yup, Yup, and Yup.
Yup. Still shaky.
Yup. That’s what we are doing.
And sceptics (who are apparently not allowed to be ‘scientists’) have never been so naive.
I wonder why that could be….?
That is just funny. If anyone seems to be wavering, they MUST toe the line. It’s their DUTY! And scientists, however wrong, MUST be protected from anyone who seeks to prove them wrong, or even question their assertions!
Nope, and nope. They are here to stay.
Yeah, we’ve been wondering the same thing there. Odd that….
Perhaps because of climategate?
Paraphrased:
“Why don’t people believe in the science, and these scientists? Why are they listening to these awful, nasty, lying, oil-funded sceptics?”
Answer:
“Because you lied.
Anu (15:34:47) :
Sorry to have ruffled your feathers, asking you to back up an assertion based solely on your understanding of the world.
I do notice which question you did not answer.
As much as I’m not a believer in the Jesus = God hypothesis, and am not thoroughly convinced in the Jesus existed hypothesis either (although there may have been some actual person upon whom the legends are based), are you seriously trying to advocate that:
1) Woodworking, to wit, carpentry was a non-existent skill 2 millenia ago? That somehow, humankind had figured out stone tools, moved beyond them to bronze and iron, invented aqueducts, and (wooden) field artillery, but just hadn’t figured out how this, “build with wood” thing works yet?
2) If so, WHY prey tell would they have changed Jesus into a carpenter instead of just left him a stone-worker?
We still have workers with stone to this day. I’ve done it a bit. My dad has for many years. It isn’t like you’d have to change Jesus from a stonemason to a carpenter for modern people to “get” it.
I agree with you about Goliath’s height, assuming Goliath was based on some historical event (from whichever century and involving whatever ethnicity). He was more likely than not shorter than modern translations make him out to be.
That said, I doubt ancient humans were building such robust towers that God was really freaked out and threatened that we’d reach heaven all on his own, thus spread us out across the Earth and gave us separate languages.
We were quite capable of doing BOTH of those things all on our own! (But not the towers to heaven.)
Bohemond (20:09:02) :
Excuse me? That would certainly come as a surprise to the makers of the many, many wooden artifacts we have from Ancient Egypt, millennia BC. Come to think of it, how did the Romans make, errr, crosses without basic carpentry skills? >>
Calm down bud. Working with wood dates back thousands of years BC. The word “carpenter” is derived from the latin carpentarius which was the skilled art of building chariots. The skill set broadened to a variety of formal wood working techniques which collectively became known as carpentry skills. the first guilds were formed to provide certification around 1200 AD. Since carpenters travelled from town to town, a fully licensed carpenter who could travel on his own without supervision was a “journeyman”.
The translation refers not to a “builder of chariots” but to a “builder of houses”.
Christoff
It isn’t like you’d have to change Jesus from a stonemason to a carpenter for modern people to “get” it>>
Fair enough. Perhaps a poor choice of example on my part. That said, the translation “builder of houses” was kept until the middle ages when it was changed to carpenter, which is what the profession building houses would have been at that time. The original term builder of houses meant a stone mason, while a carpentarius would have been a builder of chariots in Jesus time.
Without researching it and for the sake of both brevity and discussion, let’s accept your assertions in your last comment as factual.
Why then, if both carpentry and stonework existed then, would it have been changed since ancient times for us to understand/relate with it in modern times?
That part of your theory makes no sense.
Ken Smith thank you for posting this video. It is such a pleasure to witness an informed debate. Bravo to both scientists: at least Canada has a way better scientist than the ubiquitous Andrew Weaver! What a relief!
David, UK (15:30:25) :
@ CRS, Dr.P.H.
Thank you for being one of the (many) good guys. I have never doubted that most scientists out there still adhere to those age-old scientific principles, and that your good name is being tarnished by a relatively small few at the top who have the power and the influence (or are happy to have their strings pulled by such people). The Manns and the Joneses of this world, the ones who have sold out their scientific principles for (twisted) political ones – and for their pieces of silver – have lowered the respect of the Climate Scientist to that of the Politician.
But the truth always comes out eventually. All you need to do is stick to your principles (and I know you will), and when – in God knows how many years – this sorry era in scientific history has passed, you shall hold your head high.
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David, thank you for this, it means a great deal to me!!
I used to live in Exeter, UK and was granted an award by DTI for my work in biomethane mitigation in 1994…I miss your land dearly.
Anthony, thanks for this blog, it is a crossroads for some wonderful and interesting minds!! Cheers to all.
Christoph (21:49:32) :
Without researching it and for the sake of both brevity and discussion, let’s accept your assertions in your last comment as factual.
Why then, if both carpentry and stonework existed then, would it have been changed since ancient times for us to understand/relate with it in modern times?
That part of your theory makes no sense>>
At the time the translation was made from “builder of houses”, the use of masonry to build houses had long since fallen out of favour and the translator likely assumed it was a carpenter (since that what he would have associated house building with).
My point was that biblical references evolve and change over time which does not make them fabrications. Untangling the web of translations and historical context can be complicated. Does the commandment “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”? mean that there were actual witches back then? The word meant someone who prepared poisons to be used in assasinations, it had nothing to do with magic.
davidmhoffer (21:22:00) :
I *know* I’m going way OT here, but why not?
Re “journeymen”
My understanding is that “journeyman” was a transitional stage in gaining mastery in a craft.
The first step was for a boy to be apprenticed to a master craftsman. The proud parents would pay the master for this opportunity for their pride and joy to better himself and the family.
On completion of the apprenticeship, the lad would have a certain level of qualification. The next stage was as a journeyman. I think the journeyman was obliged to travel for a certain period, not just entitled to travel.
[ A number of other groups were entitled to travel as well – it was mostly only the serfs who were owned by the feudal landholder and weren’t allowed to leave.]
Travelling journeymen made a lot of sense. The Guilds were based in larger centres, so having partially qualified craftsmen travelling reduced competition at home and provided the service more widely.
On completion of the journeyman period, the young man (by this time) was entitled to attempt to become a master craftsman. This was accomplished by creation of one or more “master pieces” to the satisfaction of the Masters in the Guild; and probably by meeting other criteria as well.
I assume many were content to remain journeymen rather than make the further effort to join the ranks of the masters.
Looking at what I’ve jut written, this looks very much like the progression in the medical or legal professions here in Australia. with undergraduate, intern / GP and specialist, or the academic version with Bachelor, Master and Ph. D.
Of course, I may be partly or totally wrong, in which case I shall be corrected and learn something in the process 😉
Dave F (20:38:36) :
Sorry to have ruffled your feathers, asking you to back up an assertion based solely on your understanding of the world.
I do notice which question you did not answer.
———-
I notice you answered 0 questions.
And I only asked one.
You asked six.
Many years ago Paul Ehrlich was a guest on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Johnny knew what a good suit looked like and chided Ehrlich for wearing an expensive suit when he professed the world to be in trouble because of excessive consumption. Ehrlich’s reply went something like this: When you have booked passage on the Titanic, why go second class?
I understand that at one time he was an expert on Lepidoptera (butterflies). Then his best seller “The Population Bomb” made him a darling of environmental kooks and it has been a downward spiral for him ever sense. He seems to be still wearing the expensive suits and looking for his personal Titantic.
A blog with 15,000 visits a month has a yearly carbon dioxide emissions of 8lb.”……’
Every blog – large and small needs a header: “Don’t read this blog. Think of your carbon foot print. Besides you could be out motoring”
David,
Well, I certainly agree with that.
I’m quite sure some of them are fabrications.
I think we agree that the Bible, at least as it exists today, is often absurd. (In that case, immoral, although of course you believe this is inadvertent due to an error in translation and/or cultural misunderstanding.)
However, your certainty that you have “the one true interpretation” albeit of a naturalistic variety and thus more natively appealing to yours truly, is less than convincing.
Reply: And the biblical debate stops here. I declare myself the winner. ~ ctm.
So in Lilliput the antagonists went to war over whether to open a boiled egg at the big end or the small end (I’m a big ender).
I’ve always favored little endian. Although I can work either way.
OK, the greek text Mark 6:3:
is this not the “tekton” , the sun of Mary
In the Perseus dictionary the translation from greek is “builder” “carpenter” etc.
Now building in the Mediterranean region uses stones for foundation, a lot of bricks or plinths( unbaked bricks) and wooden rafters on which to cover the building or make floors. At that time there would have been small distinction between a stonemason builder and a carpenter builder( unless one were building the Acropolis where a lot of marble was used).
Builder is the better sense of “tekton” . It is evident that in countries where houses were mostly wooden, and one used carpenters to build the house, the term migrated to carpenter.
The greek word for carpenter is “xylourgos”, worker of wood.
The word “architect” is made up of arch(head) tect( builder).
That was son of Mary of course 🙂
Anu says:
Do you have any proof that a belief in guardian angels does not correlate negatively with an understanding of science ?
Obi-wan is my Master. And yet he is totally a creature of imagination. And still. He is my Master.
Is this proof that my designs don’t work or that the aircraft they fly on don’t fly?
Guys, guys.
You/We got sidetracked by having a language in common.
Not being religious, what *I* took away from the D vs G story — even as a child — wasn’t platitudes about bravery, but simply that better tech and being smart wins over brute force (preferably both.) David slew Goliath via long distance weaponry. Clever use of better technology for the task at hand.
In my earlier post I presumed Goliath as being the AGW juggernaut which controls the peer review process, the mainstream media, the puppet media stars, and the politicians. In the past without the internet they would get away with their attempts; they own the technology (he who controls the printing presses, etc.) But… in 2010, they don’t own the technology. David is a collection of random sites that preserve the right to assemble, albeit virtually, which collectively can muster the necessary voice and resources to stop the juggernaut.
Why wasn’t I impressed even as a kid? Because we’ve seen this story time and again, and we will continue to, because it’s part of the human condition. David (Gutenberg) took on Goliath (the Church) and the printing press kicked the reformation and enlightenment into high gear. May, 1940: seriously outnumbered yet superior RAF fighters stomp the Luftwaffe. 1973/4: newspaper reporters vs the US president. 1977: Ragtag rebels take on the galactic Empire in X-wing fighters. The story never gets old.
One day when the climate wars are all but forgotten and the world has moved on, the story that will persevere will be the same: how McIntyre and Watts and others figured out how to take down the AGW political Goliath.
That said, I doubt ancient humans were building such robust towers that God was really freaked out and threatened that we’d reach heaven all on his own…
I dunno those pyramids in Egypt are pretty impressive. Think like a Progressive of 2,000 BC. Pyramids are definitely a sign of hubris. An affront to the natural world. Think ofthei9r stone footprint. Disaster awaits.
Think of their stone footprint. Disaster awaits.
Gail says:
I am stating this after being fired from three different jobs for refusing to falsify laboratory results. I am a chemist.
Don’t take it so hard. I usually quit before they could fire me.
Extract from the Nature editorial (with emphasis added by myself): “Yes, scientists’ reputations have taken a hit thanks to headlines about the LEAKED climate e-mails at the University of East Anglia (UEA), UK. . .”
Notice this significant (and I would presume unconscious) admission by the AGW side that the CRU “climategate” e-mails were not in fact hacked by some wicked denialist individual or organization but rather leaked by someone who had been on their own side and who developed a conscience about what he/she observed going on. In admitting a leak rather than a hack they are also admitting that there must be a prima facie good reason for the leak (i.e., since people do not leak just for the sake of it, given that it can have serious legal consequences).
Hello Anthony! First time posting and loving it! I couldn’t bear listening anymore to the garbage being promoted as AGW/climate change. I have enjoyed the discussions at your website since before Climategate broke. I just couldn’t resist posting at http://www.treehugger.com mentioned earlier. I hope they take a hint here:
“Unfortunately, when you have the UNFCC originally dictate the mandate of IPCC’s work, it introduced an immediate bias into the scope of the IPCC and those scientists. When their results didn’t work with Mother’s Nature’s plans, instead of being honest and open, they tried to either force or massage the data to fit or deliberately withheld it from outside scrutiny. With so much research and money at stake, and a dubious theory to “prove” (IPCC’s mandate), of course, it became necessary to skip details, override objections, push the “agenda” and declare the science settled. Control of information was critical to maintaining the message and contrary opinion was sidelined and ridiculed. With the scientific method of openness, validation, and duplication suppressed, AGW/climate change held sway for decades without justification and verification. Collectively, it was our “fault” and we had to change for the sake of the planet. The crescendo of impending disaster for mankind grew exponentially, even more crucial as Copenhagen approached, seeing this as our “best” opportunity to avoid the coming doomday scenario.
Reminds me about cults – going great, until someone shines some light on its activities. Having been exposed, it’s pitched as a David (AGW/climate change) vs. Goliath (naysayers and skeptics) epic for our beliefs and souls, not to mention our taxes and way of life (I wish we had the billions that the warmists have already squandered from John Q. Public). Now, you want to send team Obama to tour the country and sell the concept? One suggestion for Romm – in a street fight, your opponent is REAL. So, let’s make this more like a townhall meeting across America with REAL opponents to debate. That way, the American public will hear both sides and decide. If the AGW/climate change theory is so ROBUST, it should be able to stand up to the challenge. Kind of like the way REAL science works. Like this should have happened a while back, before the cover-up. Yup, you couldn’t write a better Hollywood script or even make this stuff up. ”
I think that covered it.
Yes, which was the point.
I have never heard of Terrance Rattigan. I have not seen The Winslow Boy. I have no plans to ever see The Winslow Boy. Right away we have a problem… we have no common frame of reference.
I have not seen High Noon, although I’ve seen enough derivative works to glean an inkling of what happens. Two gunfighters face down in the middle of a hastily evacuated street while the occasional tumbleweed rolls by. They both draw and shoot at the same time. One has superior shooting skills and wins. I don’t see any moral implications here other than that gunmanship is a useful survival skill in the Old West.
Why?
I doubt I will ever understand why some people want to completely erase anything to do with “The Bible”, as if its very existence is bad. Why is “secular” automatically good?
When someone says “David and Goliath” everyone knows, or USED to know before the bible was essentially banned in public life, what story is being told. It’s supposed to be a story about the little guy who prevails against the large opponent. Whether or not people want to grind down to the details of who Goliath was or whether the protagonist was even David or not… makes no difference.
I am not a Christian, I don’t study the Bible, I am not defending its accuracy, but in all of the first world countries about the only common, long-term compilation of stories we have available is the Bible.
I can use references to Loaves and Fishes, Water into Wine, Walking on the Water, Noah’s Ark, The Ark of the Covenant, and a few more, and be reasonably certain that most in my audience will have some idea what I’m talking about. It DOESN’T MATTER the accuracy, historical background, or even original intent of the story. As a common background of stories, The Bible is best known.
This thread has amazed me, actually. I am in awe at the lengths some people will go to pretend there IS no Bible, or that nothing in it could possibly be of any value to them. Again, I’m not religious in any way. I don’t attend a church or go to confession or speak in tongues or try to impose my moral values on others.
But others are always trying to impose their moral values on me, and those others are rarely religious these days.
Herman L (09:25:13) 11 March:
“I like the way you guys use a biblical metaphor here. Of course, it means absolutely nothing. We are in the 21st century…”
You are of course entitled to your opinion, as are others to theirs. There is no question that science, properly done, has advanced the human condition beyond the wildest dreams of our ancestors. But, at best, science can tell us only the “what”; it can give proximate causes, but it cannot tell us the underlying cause, the real “why”.
For example, why was atmospheric CO2 many times higher millions of years ago than it is today, or why did warming periods give way to ice ages and thence to warming and glaciation again? What was the underlying cause, the “why”, not merely the contributing factors. Rhetorical questions, because I put it to you that no one knows the “why”.
Mankind can predict times of “sunrise” and “sunset”, solstices and equinoxes, phases of the moon, tidal movements, and planetary orbits, because of order in our solar system and beyond. Many argue that these events are the result of the accidental collision of atoms. Those same people also argue without knowing they do so that their thoughts and the words expressing them result from the accidental collision of atoms in the brain. On this view, my thoughts and words are no better or worse than those of others. Science cannot have made the giant strides it has if this line of reasoning is true.
I should think it obvious that even the most capable scientist sees as in a hazy mirror. At best, we know in part, something AGW and non-AGW advocates alike need to recognise. One day we will know fully, as we ourselves are fully known now. Meanwhile, it does us no ill to recognise and give thanks for the bountiful provision around us. Let us all remember that though we may plant the seed we do not make it germinate and grow.
You may reject out of hand this insight into my worldview. I cannot and will not attempt to deny you that right. Without, I trust, smugness or complacency, I content my self with the knowledge that many of the greatest minds in history held the same worldview. This is not to say they condoned the faults and excesses of fellow believers that sadly continue today. We humans all have feet of clay.
Ken Smith@18:53:14, “The Agenda with Steve Paiken” is a pretty good program, thanks for that. I first saw the show while in Montreal recently but unfortunately TVO is not available in Alberta.
When was Paul Ehrlich ever right about anything?
” That said, the translation “builder of houses” was kept until the middle ages when it was changed to carpenter, which is what the profession building houses would have been at that time. The original term builder of houses meant a stone mason, while a carpentarius would have been a builder of chariots in Jesus time.”
Whoa whoa whoa. The Greek is ‘tekton,’ a maker or artificer: a rather generic term like the related modern “technician” of somewhat different meaning. The Vulgate has ‘fabri’ of similar meaning, with perhaps more a connotation of ‘builder’: neither word has ever been changed, in the Middle Ages or since. The more specific ‘carpenter’ we probably owe to Wycliffe. Similarly Luther used ‘Zimmermann,’ wood-man or lignarius. (Interestingly, the 10th century West Saxon Gospels have “smith.”)
However, ‘carpentarius’ would not have meant “builder of chariots” by Tiberius’ reign, since the things had been obsolete for centuries. Sure, they would put a triumphator in an ornate ceremonial one, but that was rather akin to the Household Cavalry, a conscious anachronism for the sake of tradition. By Jesus’ day the word meant “cartwright, wagon-maker.” A carpenter was a ‘lignarius,’ woodworker.
Compare ‘luthier’, originally ‘maker of lutes’, but which today means a maker of stringed instruments generally, especially guitars and almost never lutes. Or ‘clerk,’ which rarely if ever means ‘clergyman’ now.
Herman L,
“Just out of curiosity, Vincent, I’d like to know your take on some verifiable numbers here: how many “errors” are we talking about “under the glare of scrutiny” have been identified, and how many pages are there in the IPCC FAR”
Ok, here’re a few:
1) Ocean heat anomaly failed to appear as predicted by Hansen and required by the AGW hypothesis. There has effectively been no increase in ocean heat as measured by the Argo network since 2003. This correlates with about 1 * 10^23 Joules unaccounted for.
2) Predicted tropical mid troposphere hotspot as predicted by GCM’s has not been observed.
3) Earth radiation budget does not show a decreasing outgoing radiation when lower troposphere warms – Lindzen & Choi.
4) Lack of statisically significant warming since 1995.
5) Recent revelation that NSDC have dropped the majority of stations from their surface data record, where these stations are predominantly at higher lattitudes or altitudes, which raises the likelihood of warm bias.
6) Growing acceptance from alarmist scientists that the MWP was real and global and the hockey sticks studies are garbage ( sceptical scientists have always known this anyway).
7) Doomagedon predictions from IPCC WGII have been shown to be false:
Himalayan glacier disappearance by 2035; African crops to plumet by 50% by 2020; Amazon rainforests especially sensitive to climate change; 55% of Holland is beneath sea level; Glacier retreat studies pulled from climbing magazines; Worsening hurricanes and storms.
Of course, you can then play your silly game of counting pages. How many pages are there in the IPCC report? Does it matter? I thought science was based on ideas not pages, and most of them have been found wanting.
So, how many pages? How many sheets on a roll of toilet paper?
Wyndham Dix (03:47:15) :
Nice. Science is not the only source of truth. Thank God.
Others: Re the debate over carpentry: does the origin of the word have to predate the practice? What happens is the opposite. Consider that the word “engineer” was coined to refer to 12th century French cathedral builders – i.e. the men who oversaw the design and technical challenges. Does this mean Vitruvius in the 1st century, or the unknown designers of the Pantheon and other architectural marvels were not engineers? Also, consider that the word “scientist” was coined in 1833. Where does that leave Newton if you are going to be so formalist? Thanks to Anna V for pointing out that in ancient dwellings the roofs were made of wood – at least for the supports; and to Behemond to pointing out that carpentry involved activities other than making dwellings. P.S. – there is still no word in English for one who “does” technology i.e. becomes an expert in the use of and modification of technology (as opposed to engineers or inventors, who design but do not use specific technologies for their livelihoods). ‘Technician’ has different connotations.
Vincent (06:43:39),
I don’t understand Herman’s question about the number of pages. What does that have to do with anything?
The assessment report page counts:
1990: 423
1995: 317
2001: 3387
2007: 2846
My question: why do page counts matter?
from dictionary.reference.com
carpenter
early 14c. (attested from 1121 as a surname), from O.N.Fr. carpentier (O.Fr. charpentier), from L.L. (artifex) carpentarius “wagon (maker),” from L. carpentum “two-wheeled carriage, cart,” from Gaul., from O.Celt. *carpentom (cf. O.Ir. carpat, Gael. carbad “carriage”), probably related to Gaul. karros (see car). Replaced O.E. treowwyrhta
drjohn (05:18:10) :
When was Paul Ehrlich ever right about anything?
I seem to recall from my early years in zoology, that Ehrlich was known for butterfly taxonomy. Since taxonomy is being ripped asunder by genetic analysis, most of the old methodology is vanishing. In short, ever since he stopped studying Lepidoptera, he’s been full of shirt.
The simple truth is a far more powerful weapon than the failed cargo cult science produced by the IPCC cabal. Despite the support of politicians, big business, the MSM and the handful of people who have the ‘old money’ – who dream of having an unelected world government.
The shift in public opinion regarding this debate shows the truth is getting out.
I guess you have to be a native german speaker to see the irony.
“Ehrlich” is the german word for “honest”. Seems to be a clear case of “nomen non est omen”.
This is a little OT, but too many of you are so f’n rooted in ‘science’ that NOTHING but provable analysis (by humans) exists.
Let me just say this: I’ve had many experiences that cannot be explained away because you cannot ‘prove’ them (foresight is one of them, and it is NOT deja-vu… I’ve had both).
Gamma Rays, X-ray, Infra-red, UV, etc. were ALL in EXISTENCE BEFORE science ‘discovered’ and named them, correct? Yes. Ancients often attributed ‘findings’ to the gods, but did, in fact, use various findings in a sort of ‘science’ of the day.
If, for example, I go into the sun for extended periods of time, my skin turns red, hurts and starts to peel… If I stay in the shade, it doesn’t happen. Does it take a genius to figure out that something within the sun is causing this, or to make some sort of correlation? No. You don’t need to know it is what we call UV to make it real or to make it happen. Of course, it helps to know and I am not against findings.
I believe we are so f’n arrogant to actually believe that we can detect (and/or alter) everything in existence–not saying most believe that, but many do. I believe that there is SO MUCH more playing a role and acting upon us that to think we could actually say what we find is ‘settled’ or ‘fact’ is foolish. There are probably ‘elements’ that we have no clue even exist… so, we can’t even begin to look for them.
My point is this: Do not dismiss what you have not experienced, or believe, because humans are taught that they are only blobs of skin and bones and nothing more… I believe humans are MUCH more, just by observing the percentage of our brains used vs unused–you don’t need to be hooked up as a cyborg to access it, in fact, that whole scenario of transhumanism is quite the opposite; remember, the only real, major threat to all life in Star Trek was the BORG and their assimilation.
I don’t believe in religion, but that does not mean there is nothing more–and after my experiences, I know there is more than this 3D world as seen through our eyes and our basic senses. I don’t believe in evolution, or creationism as presented because they are both full of holes. In this universe earth is FAR from downtown, and in fact, we are WAY out in the boonies, so, to say that there aren’t humanoids in our universe that were/are capable of bringing us here long ago, again, is not taking into account the sheer magnitude and likelihood that life is abundant and thriving.
I love this site and the contributions of scientists, but that doesn’t mean science CAN prove everything… it cannot, and in many, if not MOST cases, science is just theory based on our current findings, not taking into account the forces that we don’t understand yet.
Again, thanks to all the contributors here… I do learn quite a bit, and some of it is even over my head, being just an MBA with a specialization in Marketing.
wws said:
“Credibility is like virginity – once it’s gone, you don’t get it back.”
Wonderful comment! It is so wonderful to see this David vs Goliath fight: Big Media, Big Academia & Bureaucracy with all their $trillions are being defeated by a bunch of bloggers with integrity and thirst for truth. This is one of the most beautiful things that we have ever seen. David will win, of course, he already almost won! BEAUTIFUL!
ctm,
As always, we appreciate your work.
You moderate with a light and fair hand, unlike some people who are, “You must agree with me or you must die!!!!” (Well, not die, but be humiliated by the other person’s awesome power and ability to afford a $7.95 month shared hosting account, and therefore be the ruler of his (it’s usually a he) hosting account.
As far as the Bible thing goes, well that was interesting. I did learn some ways of looking at aspects of it I hadn’t previously considered, and I certainly don’t think they were necessarily wrong; I was only unpersuaded that the level of certainly claimed could be backed up.
Anyway, not every Bible story gets my interest to that degree. It’s just that even as a kid I could never understand how putting an extremely accomplished deadly expert with a missile weapon up against a man without a missile weapon at a distance was a moral lesson.
It seemed more of a lesson showing the value of stand-off weaponry.
😉
Vincent (06:43:39) :
Ok, here’re a few:
1) Ocean heat anomaly failed to appear as predicted by Hansen and required by the AGW hypothesis. There has effectively been no increase in ocean heat as measured by the Argo network since 2003. This correlates with about 1 * 10^23 Joules unaccounted for.
—————-
Sorry, your “criticism” is out of date:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php
The oceans have been warming quickly:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
In a short comment, you only get to make one error.
If you wrote a report thousands of pages long, I would allow, and respond to, 4 or 5 errors.
And unlike virginity, one misses it.
KDK (09:17:27)
“I love this site and the contributions of scientists, but that doesn’t mean science CAN prove everything… it cannot, and in many, if not MOST cases, science is just theory based on our current findings, not taking into account the forces that we don’t understand yet.”
There is something in what you say, but science is also a journey of discovery – a discovery of the way the universe works. While it is true that there must be much that remains to be discovered, and what we think we know may be wrong on many different levels, I believe that at the physical level, there is nothing that must lie forever beyond scientific understanding.
Theologists are keen to keep a permanent separation between science and the divine, as if the divine, if it existed was somehow beyond science. But since to be be beyond science is to be beyond the universe, then by that argument, the divine is beyond the universe as well. Anything beyond the universe by definition cannot be part of our lives and therefore not real. It becomes subjective – an idea.
“Smokey (07:07:17) :
I don’t understand Herman’s question about the number of pages. What does that have to do with anything”
———————–
That was something I tried to elucidate in my reply. My understanding is that his thought process goes something like “these IPCC retractions only run to a few dozen pages but the whole IPCC report is thousands of pages. Therefore whatever number you give me I will retort that only x% of the IPCC science has been refuted. Since x is very small I can confidently argue that nothing has changed – the science is still robust.”
Of course, the logical absurdity of such an argument is breathtaking, even from a propaganda perspective. As I tried to explain, science is based on ideas that have to stand scrutiny, not on the number of pages in a report. It should be obvious that anyone with a different agenda could easily pad the report with sceptical papers, so what does it prove?
The other counter to the paperweight argument, is that most of the criticisms of AGW have been known long before climategate, as I listed in my post, and undercut a lot of the foundation. This is true regardless of what other mistakes are discovered in WGII, and how many pages we can salvage for our hypothesis.
Paul Erlich was right about…moving to Stanford, in the lap of the Santa Clara Valley with its wonderful year round weather, great local politics, great local economy. Is it any wonder that one of Al Gore’s companies is located near by as well as his San Francisco beach front condo ? These guys certainly know where to preach from not some hard scrabble existence somewhere.
Gee, you want pick on the idiot guru who stated flatly that nothing would be alive in the vast Oceans by 1975 or 1976 at the absolute outside. It was Erlich and his good buddy, Jonnie boy Holdren, the JEn-OO-INE, JUNK SCIEnCE Advizer to the Clueless One.
He promised to bring his brand of Lysenko ‘Szyense’ to the gov’mint…
He is working hard too. No NASA shuttles and we have no way to get to the Space Station that we spent 150 Billion on, without hitching a ride. So we have no Space Program.
We have NOT made our few hundred million a year contribution to the ITER Fusion Experiment even though it is responsibility of a International Treaty Obligation. So we have no real Energy Research Program.
We decided to close the Yucca Mountain Waste Repository after spending 20 $ Billion on it, and are obligated by $200 billion in pre-payments by the Utilities, to take their waste. All for a handful of NIMBY votes for Reid, for whom it won’t save his seat, anyhow. So much for building new Nuclear Power Plants.
We did spend money to reinvigorate the unreproducible and self-admitted lies and fabrications of Dr. Suk’s embryonic stem cell papers. But its justification for Planned Parenthood and they provide lots of illegal campaign cash, So we are killing valid Stem Cell Research Programs .
Ain’t the Clueless One’ s Lysenkoist Science just wonderful!??
Anu,
“The oceans have been warming quickly:
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
In a short comment, you only get to make one error.
If you wrote a report thousands of pages long, I would allow, and respond to, 4 or 5 errors.”
Your link exactly proves my point. The graph shows a slight decline from 2003 until present. I was being generous when I said no warming. The fact that there has been no increase in ocean heat anomaly is accepted by climate scientists. Nobody is disputing it. Hansen claims the heat has been sequestered somewhere else. Roger Pielke sr. has put this question to Gavin Schmidt: “What in your estimation is the expected amount of accumulated ocean heat in joules since 2003.” He never received a reply.
You are entitled to your own opinion of course, but not your own facts.
Historic note: Nature Magazine
They sold out to the anti-hunting and anti-gun crowd long ago, at least back before the Spotted Owl fraud. Why would anyone regard them as credible on any subject?
vigilantfish (06:55:55) 12 March:
Thank you. I suspect you will allow that science is the conduit of truth, not the ultimate source of it.
Sadly, as painful revelations of the past four months show only too well, some so-called science is the source of untruth. This happens when people imitate Narcissus, the figure from Greek mythology who fell in love with his own image in a well. Some were so in love before embarking on their careers.
Anu, you are asking for evidence to prove a negative. I didn’t answer you because it is a silly question, and also completely irrelevant. Belief in guardian angels is completely beside the point. See: Obi-Wan is my master. Or, to put it even more simply, if a doctor believes in guardian angels, do all his patients die?
Now, I would love to hear your opinion on how the head of IPCC being a Hindu (polytheistic, which means not just one God and angels, but many gods, over 3000 in Hinduism, acutally) affects their work, since you seem incapable of addressing any other real issues. If you are now beginning to see why I think your point is irrelevant, I accept your apology.
Theo Barker (18:39:10) :
You say of my post at (15:35:06):
Interesting conspiracy theory. However, it has little support, much like Ehrlich’s many assertions…
[snip]
As a French translation (La Bible du Semeur) points out, it may have been a copyists error on which your theory is based…
*******************
I choose to ignore the Ehrlich insult because I assume it was inserted in hope of distraction, and I refuse to be distracted by it.
No conspiracy theory was stated and/or implied in my post at (15:35:06). I said there that the story of David and Goliath is pertinent to the issue being debated here, and I explained its pertinence.
I know there are people who try to put a literal meaning to everything in the Bible, but no serious Biblical scholar does.
The scribes collected and wrote the oral tradition of ‘the people’ during the Second Exile in Babylon because they feared the religion and culture were being lost. Each item they wrote was selected for a reason.
I said we cannot know the reason they chose to record the story of David and Goliath when – elsewhere – they said it was a fabrication. You suggest that this is a result of “a copyists error”. Perhaps, but that transfers the problem to one of finding a reason that they bothered to include the other story which you suggest has been mistranslated.
So, I stand by what I said in my revious post: i.e.
“So, the lesson to be learned from the myth of David and Goliath is to recognise the true strengths and weaknesses of opponents, and to avoid being fooled by their spin. It is important to remember those lessons when considering the Editorial in Nature by Paul Ehrlich.”
Richard
davidmhoffer (19:35:45) :
Please see my response to Theo Barker. I wrote my post at (15:35:06) to say that the story of David and Goliath does indeed provide lessons that are perinent to the subject of this thread.
There are responses to each of your points (e.g. dyes may not have been invented then but brown, black, and white(ish) sheep and goats probably existed).
And I do not dispute the possibility of translation/transcription errors.
But I do not see this forum as the place for detailed textual analysis of Biblical texts. My point was that the story of David and Goliath and the probable reason for its inclusion in the Canon are directly pertinent to the subject of this thread: they provide a useful lesson that needs to be kept in mind.
You may want to denigrate such ancient scriptures, but they exist because they tell about the human condition so powerfully that they have stood the test of time for millenia.
Richard
Vincent (12:49:55) :
Anu,
Your link exactly proves my point. The graph shows a slight decline from 2003 until present. I was being generous when I said no warming.
No, you were being “incorrect”. Learn the difference.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
Since you have trouble eyeballing where the year 2003 lies, look at this graph from another WUWT contributor Bob Tisdale:
http://i38.tinypic.com/zxjy14.png
Find 2003 on the x axis. Now follow the vertical column to see the ocean heat content anomaly values for that year. Now find the year 2004 on the x axis. Look at the corresponding heat content. Quite a bit of warming. Now find 2005. 2006. 2007. 2008. 2009. Overall, warming.
Good. That’s called “reading a graph”.
The fact that there has been no increase in ocean heat anomaly is accepted by climate scientists. Nobody is disputing it. Hansen claims the heat has been sequestered somewhere else. Roger Pielke sr. has put this question to Gavin Schmidt: “What in your estimation is the expected amount of accumulated ocean heat in joules since 2003.” He never received a reply.
Dream on.
Not only can’t you read a simple graph, you are missing the point that the top 700 meters of the ocean have a more variable heat content than the top 2000 meters (and keep in mind the deepest part of the ocean, the Marianas Trench, goes down 10,900 meters).
http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/ocean-heat-2000m.gif
This graph is based on this paper, which uses Argo data (subscription required for full text):
Global hydrographic variability patterns during 2003–2008 (Schuckmann 2009)
This upper slab of the oceans is absorbing energy at the rate of 0.77 ± 0.11 Wm−2 for the years 2003 to 2008, inclusive.
An observationally based energy balance for the Earth since 1950 (Murphy 2009) showed that 94.4% of the global warming heat goes into the oceans (the rest into the land and atmosphere). If the ocean is absorbing 0.77 ± 0.11 Wm−2, this puts the total energy imbalance at around 0.82 ± 0.12 Wm−2. This is a slight underestimate as Murphy 2009 included ocean heat down to 3000m, not 2000m.
Earth’s Global Energy Budget (Trenberth 2009) examined satellite measurements of incoming and outgoing radiation for the March 2000 to May 2004 period and found the planet accumulating energy at a rate of 0.9 ± 0.15 Wm−2.
All these estimates are consistent with each other, and more importantly, all find a statistically significant positive energy imbalance.
The oceans are warming.
Deal with it.
FYI, Gavin Schmidt’s reply to Roger Pielke Sr. came in the form of a group reply on the website he contributes to regularly, entitled More Bubkes:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/more-bubkes/langswitch_lang/sp/
You are entitled to your own opinion of course, but not your own facts.
Good advice.
You should take it.
Dave F (14:43:20) :
Do you have any proof that a belief in guardian angels does not correlate negatively with an understanding of science ? Strong correlation is much more important than “mutually exclusive”.
Anu, you are asking for evidence to prove a negative.
Here, learn your way around the Internet with an easier one:
Do you have any proof that driving while intoxicated does not correlate negatively with car accidents ?
KDK (09:17:27) : I liked your post. It was authentic. Genuine. Civil.
johnnythelowery (08:34:14) :
Two sorts of inventive fiction come from East Anglia. The first is from the brilliant and prolific Ian McEwan who is a masters graduate of the Creative Writing course at the University of East Anglia. The second is, of course, from the Climatic Research Unit.
Anu,
“Since you have trouble eyeballing where the year 2003 lies, look at this graph from another WUWT contributor Bob Tisdale:
http://i38.tinypic.com/zxjy14.png.”
This graph showing the grid is much clearer. I apologise – 2003 was indeed cooler than the following years. I have pulled off the following data points:
2003 – 0.1
2004 – 0.3
2005 – 0.3
2006 – 0.3
2007 – 0.3
2008 – 0.3
2009 – 0.3
So yes, I concede your point that there has been warming since 2003, but not since 2004.
Your last link, to RC on the Pielke criticism is quite interesting. It begins by restating Pielke’s criticism “There has been no statistically significant warming of the upper ocean since 2003.” Their response is not to say that Pielke is wrong, but that the time scale is too short to be statistically significant: “Pielke is referring to a 5-year period which is too short to obtain statistically robust trends in the presence of short-term variability and data accuracy problems.”
They then refer to the Levitus data and point to a positive trend but “with an uncertainty (both in the trend calculation and systematically) that makes it impossible to state whether there has been a significant change.”
So, Pielke say’s there’s not trend. RC says the period is too short to be meaningful but even if there is a positive trend the errors are too large to draw any conclusions.
I agree – they are both right. Yet against this background you try and fob me off with two further papers (both behind paywalls) that claim to show significant warming of the oceans, and another paper (Trenberth) that estimates that heat is being absorbed based on CERES data. If heat is being absorbed where is it? We’ve already seen from RC and Pielke both more or less agreeing that there hasn’t been statistically significant ocean warming over that short period.
And didn’t Trenberth also admit that there hasn’t been any warming and it’s a travesty that we can’t account for it?
IIRC, Cooper faced three or four opponents. He had one assistant. The opponents were knocked off (mostly, anyway) in a run-and-hide-and-stalk gun battle involving several episodes.
George E smith
You ask whether oxygen and nitrogen are transparent to “radiant heat”
Well now you have me bamboozled because I have no idea what that is. I do know that oxygen and particularly nitrogen are pretty transparent to “radiant energy”; but not to whatever that “heat” part is.
Here we are at the heart of AGW fraud.
It was John Tyndall in his book Contributions to molecular Physics in the Domain of Radiant Heat 150 odd years ago that originally proposed that oxygen and nitrogen were quote: “practically transparent to radiant heat”.
What you are attempting to do it seems is confuse “radiant heat” and “radiant energy” when of course they are one and the same. As for the rest of your mental gymnastics I have no response I’m afraid as I completely fell asleep.
Try this to keep things as simple as possible:
Air is 20% oxygen and 79% nitrogen and 0.0385% CO2
Inconvenient truth:
Air, pure oxygen and pure nitrogen all absorb more heat than pure CO2.
For proof, see here: “AGW Debunked for £3.50”
and for verification see here: “Specific Heat Capacity of Gases”
AGW R.I.P.
Don’t believe AGW is a fraud, know it!
http://www.spinonthat.com/CO2.html
Vincent (06:00:56) :
Anu,
So yes, I concede your point that there has been warming since 2003
———-
There, was it so hard to admit you were wrong ?
Yes, I agree that scientific papers should not be behind paywalls on the Internet – having them published on paper and sold for exorbitant prices to University libraries is probably holding back the progress of science, if only a little (although the Journals argue this pays for the peer-review process, and they are doing a service). It looks like there is movement towards free access to published papers on the Web, even if only after 12 months:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/03/openmit/
I think you missed the important point in my explanation – not that short sequences seldom show statistical significance ( flip a coin – heads, heads, heads, heads is not statistically significant, at a 5% level, but heads, heads, heads, heads, heads is)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance
The important point is that Argo floats now allow us to look at the ocean heat content down to 2000 meter depths, not the 700 meters you are fixating on.
http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/FrHow_Argo_floats.html
At this depth, there has been no stalling of the heat content rise, such as the 700 meter top of the ocean from 2004 to 2009:
http://tinyurl.com/yeurhn3
Global ocean heat storage is definitely rising, in the top 2000 meters of the ocean, during this time.
If the Argo network were more numerous and the floats went deeper, we would have an even better understanding of where all the extra heat from global warming is going – the vertical flows, the ocean currents involved and their oscillations, how deep the warming is penetrating, etc.
Here’s a preprint PDF of the Schuckmann 2009 paper:
http://www.euro-argo.eu/content/download/49437/368494/file/VonSchukmann_et_al_2009_inpress.pdf
It’s the Journal of Geophysical Research Oceans that doesn’t want to share the entire paper (just the Abstract), not me.
5. Conclusion
During the six years of in-situ measurements [2003-2008], an oceanic warming of 0.77 ± 0.11 Wm−2 occurred in the upper 2000m depth of the water column.
Major advances in measuring the global ocean hydrographic changes have been made by the implementation of the Argo observing system
In addition to the rates of global hydrographic changes, the large-scale spatial patterns of temperature and salinity variability have been estimated. With our finndings it is possible to classify time scales of variability within different latitude bands, at least over the period of our in-situ field. These show large amounts of interannual and decadal fluctuations at northern mid-latitudes which reach deep into the water column.
And from the Introduction:
In addition, the long-term global warming trend is also largly caused by warming in the Southern Ocean that extends deep into the water column
It is hard to see the warming “deep into the water column” if you are not measuring there – 0 m to 700m measurements are not looking at 700 m to 2000 m ocean heat.
Anu (21:47:58) :
Your sarcastic and condescending responses do not hide the fact that you selectively answer the questions you can, while ignoring the ones you can’t. Your entire point is moot, and instead of acknowledging that fact, you ask another completely unrelated question. This is intellectually dishonest, so it may be okay with you, but I will not engage in your distraction tactic. You made the assertion, it is on you to prove anything. All I did was ask for proof your assertion was true, but you asked for proof it was false. That is not how things are proven, but given your position, I am not surprised by the tactic. Maybe you are surprised to be caught using it?
Anu,
You have provided interesting information. But here is the problem I have. A renowned climate scientist – Roger Pielke sr – asserts that Argo data tells us there has been no warming since 2003 or 2004. You show me a graph which is completely at odds with what Pielke is claiming. How can a scientist who is presumably very knowledgeable in this area make a statement that is demonstrably false and why hasn’t Gavin Schmidt pointed this out?
The other problem is that if the upper 700m of ocean has not shown a warming trend as you accept, then why would the bottom 1300m be warming without affecting the top 700m?
The whole thing sounds very fishy (pun intended) and although I am not so strident as before, I’m not convinced by your assertions either.